Potatoes: 27/11/2018

Ex-farm potato prices reported to the IFA

Low High Average

Rooster box (New season) €500 €520 €510

Rooster 10kg bags (New Season) €5.75 €6.25 €6.00

Whites box (New season) €500 €550 €525

Kerr Pinks 10kg (New season) €6.25 €6.75 €6.50

Golden Wonder box (New Season) €680 €720 €700

Comment: The large majority of potato growers are finished their field work for 2018, with approximately 95% of the potato harvest completed to date. Growers who still have some potatoes in the ground are working hard to get any remaining crops out of the ground before conditions deteriorate further as we enter the first week of December. Prices continue to hold relatively stable, with a 1t box of Rooster continuing to trade for €510. It is estimated that total Irish tonnage is back around 30% this year, which is a combination of lower yields and the area grown down by 12% on last year’s plantings. Meanwhile, in the south of the country, growers are not over the moon after the harvest of the Kerr Pink variety, as they were hit hard by the drought. High levels of wastage due to quality, secondary growths and under-developed potatoes has been reported. In the UK, there is a large variation in prices obtained by growers due to the quality of the produce in what is becoming a widely priced market. The April 2019 European future price is now at €298/t.